Pages

Tuesday, 20 May 2014

I never played NiGHTS when it was originally released on the Saturn
in 1996, although I did play the bonus ‘Christmas’ version. When
I saw the HD PC version on sale recently I thought I’d give it a
go, as it was a title I was always interested in but never got around
to playing.

At its heart, NiGHTS is a score attack game. There are seven levels
in all, each split into four smaller stages and each ending with a
boss fight. None are very long, and you can clear the game in a
couple of hours without any great difficultly. But as I said, NiGHTS
is a score attack game, and the real challenge is to replay these
levels and clear them with the highest score possible.

You’re graded on a A-F scale for each section of a level, and on
how fast you take down the boss. An average is then taken to award an
overall level score. C grades are fairly easy to obtain, but it’s
when you start aiming higher that things get a bit more tricky. In
terms of gameplay, NiGHTS has been described as ‘Sonic in the sky’
and that’s a solid comparison, because this is a game all about
speed and precision. ‘Beating’ it isn’t at all hard, but
mastering it and attaining those A ranks is where the real challenge
lies.

But what of the story? Well, it’s something to do with dreams and
nightmares and frankly I don’t know what the f*** is going on, but
in a game like this I’m not sure it really matters. In terms of how
it looks, the HD version is a nice update, although I do think they
could have smoothed it out a little more. I like that the original
Saturn version is included for comparison, as is the bonus Christmas
level plus additional artwork/movie stuff.

The design of the levels is decent, although it can sometimes be easy
to mix up a path in the background (on the next level section) with
your current path, but this is something you’ll learn as you replay
it. It’s certainly a unique game, especially when it comes to the
world, characters and boss designs. And some of those boss fights,
whilst easy to defeat, are certainly fun to play.

I struggled a little with the score for this one because NiGHTS is
such a unique and interesting game to play, with some wonderful
design and colourful visuals. But it’s also not quite a game I
connected with personally. As someone who has never really been into
score attack style games, NiGHTS doesn’t hold that much interest
for me beyond a couple of replays. If, however, you love that sort of
thing, then NiGHTS is definitely worth a look.

Saturday, 17 May 2014

Watch_Dogs is a game I’ve been keeping track of for some time. It
had a very impressive first showing at E3 a couple of years ago and
was scheduled for release late last year. It was then delayed, now
due for release at the end of this month. It’s a game I really like
the concept of, but I have this sinking feeling it will end up like
so many of the big releases of the last few years – a decent enough
game, but also a case of sadly wasted potential. But despite that, I
figured I’d give it a shot on release. And then I saw this -

Seriously? Are they f**king joking? This is getting way out of hand.
I can’t say I care much about the physical content. There’s
always been physical Limited/Collectors edition stuff. But in-game
content? Okay, some of it may be purely cosmetic, but what about the
stuff that’s not? Like the perks? How much impact will these
have/not have on the game? And then we have the extra missions too,
content that should be available for all regardless of platform,
edition or place of purchase.

The fact that this content is split between so many editions and
platforms is ridiculous. If I buy through Steam, I have the choice of
a Standard Edition or the Digital Deluxe. There’s also a Season
Pass for DLC, but this includes content already available in the DD.
So if I want to obtain as much of the in-game content available as I
can, I’m essentially forced into paying for the same content twice.
And there’s no way to obtain all available content, not unless I
purchase multiple copies across multiple platforms.

You can argue that a lot of this content is pointless fluff, and
maybe it is, but chopping up content to an extent like this is just
stupid. It’s stuff like this that makes me not want to buy a
game. Now, I probably will still get Watch_Dogs when it comes out in
a week or so, despite my reservations for the game itself and my
irritation at the way the launch content has been handled. But I’ll
feel a little dirty for doing so, and that may have a negative impact
on my impression of the game.

Cut this shit out.

In other news, the first Titanfall DLC dropped – Expedition. I
rather enjoyed Titanfall, but as I said in my review, it was a game
lacking in variety, creativity and content. One which, despite a
strong start, was going to struggle to hold my interest beyond a
month or two of play. And after sinking about 50 hours into the game
after release, I found that to hold true. As entertaining as
Titanfall was to play, it grew stale rather rapidly.

So I was quite looking forward to seeing what DLC they would release.
It needed to be something to really give the game a shot in the arm,
an injection of fresh, varied, creative content. So what did they
give us? Three maps. Three. For £7.99. No, I’ve not bought
it. And although I have no doubts that the maps are well designed, as
per those in the core game, I expected a lot more from this
DLC, especially at that price. Titanfall doesn’t need more maps. It
needs new modes. New weapons. New Titans. New customisation options
and challenges. New Burn Cards and Pilot abilities. New maps are
welcome, but they won’t give the game the kick up the ass it
desperately needs.

To make matters worse, they not only haven’t provided any new
modes, they’ve actually removed two. Okay, so not entirely
removed, as they are still available to play as private matches or as
part of the Variety Pack. Now, I can’t say CTF and Pilot Hunter
were modes I particularly enjoyed, but I’m sure a lot of people
did, people who may have paid a lot of money for the game (plus
Season Pass) who have a right to that content not getting pulled on a
whim.

And saying that you can still enjoy them as part of private matches
is a joke, because I’m sure there are many people like me who don’t
have a full list of Titanfall playing friends. Many people rely on
the random matchmaking. And if they now want to play CTF or PH, they
have to join the Variety Pack and wait for them to cycle around. This
is bullshit.

Hopefully, with enough backlash, they’ll add these modes back onto
the main selection. They never should have been removed. It’s a
kick in the balls to all those customers who paid for and enjoyed
that content. So what if it wasn’t as popular as the other modes?
Why not just leave it be?

So I won’t be buying this DLC, not until it gets a serious
discount, and by then the game may just be dead in the water. It’s
a shame because Titanfall is a pretty darn good game. But doing shit
like dropping modes and releasing such lacklustre DLC…it’s like
they’re trying to kill it themselves.

Tuesday, 13 May 2014

It’s not often I buy games on a whim without really knowing
anything about them, but then I saw a few images of a game called
Child of Light and snapped it up almost immediately. It’s a RPG
with turn-based combat mixed with platforming and light puzzle
elements.

So we have to start with how fantastic the game looks. It’s almost
like somebody was putting together concept art for the world and then
someone else said, ‘hey, why don’t we just use that?’ Visually,
Child of Light is beautiful. It’s like (and quite appropriately)
stepping into a children’s storybook. It’s colourful and bright,
but also very detailed, with a lot of small, charming touches
combined with a great deal of location and visual variety.

This also
extends to the game’s characters and enemies, all of whom look
great and are all wonderfully animated. The music is also very good,
moving from calm, gentle exploration pieces and ramping up during
combat segments. So it looks fantastic and it sounds very good too.
But what about the story?

Child of Light tells the story of Aurora, a young girl cast into the
world of Lemuria, on a quest to thwart an evil queen who has stolen
the Moon, Sun and Stars. Like the visuals, the story of Child of
Light is like something out of a storybook, told in the game by
characters who only speak in rhyme. It’s a charming story with
charming characters, all of whom get a chance to shine.

So how does it actually play? Well, you have the exploration element,
whereby you traverse the world at your leisure. This is a game that,
refreshingly and perhaps surprisingly, doesn’t lead you by the hand
but instead allows the player to explore as they see fit. And
exploration in CoL can be very rewarding as you discover hidden
chests, upgrades and optional bosses.

Engaging an enemy triggers a battle. If you engage the enemy from
behind you’ll get a free, first strike, so positioning in the world
is important, although it’s not exactly hard to get behind an enemy
thanks to Igniculus. He’s Aurora’s constant companion throughout
the game. You can use him to collect certain items and blind enemies
so you can get past them. He’s also used to help solve the simple
puzzles. In battle, you can use him to slow enemies on the action bar
or heal your characters.

The action bar determines when and who can attack, so slowing your
enemies actions and speeding up your own can be key. It (plus
Igniculus) adds an interesting real-time dynamic to the turn based
combat, keeping you on your toes and keeping track of who’s going
to make the next move. Because nearly all moves require casting time,
some longer than others. On top of this, casts can be interrupted,
knocking the character back down the action bar.

This makes the
combat far more tactical than you might expect from a game like this,
as you have to figure out the best timing to strike, defend, swap
characters, heal or use special abilities. If you don’t plan
accordingly, you’ll get wiped out surprisingly quickly. What’s
more, the game doesn’t treat you like an idiot, spelling out how to
beat certain enemies or bosses. It’s up to you to figure out their
weaknesses and the best pattern for attack.

So far, so good, right? But CoL unfortunately suffers from some of
the same issues I had with another RPG recently – The Stick of
Truth. Like that game, CoL limits you to only 2 characters per
battle. Okay, so you can can easily switch in and out characters
during battle, and this is certainly a strong part of the strategic
dynamic, but I really would have liked it if the game expanded on the
active party battle size as the game progressed. Enemy groups are
also always limited to 3.

Also like The Stick of Truth, CoL has all the components you’d
expect in an RPG battle system such as status effects, elemental
attacks, upgrades, potions, special abilities etc, but it never
really makes use of them to the extent that you might hope. With the
battle party and enemy sizes never changing, the non-boss battles
grow rather repetitive to fight through as you’ll quickly establish
an effective rotation. The game does allay this problem slightly by
frequently introducing new enemy types with different abilities and
weaknesses (something Stick didn’t do very well) but still, once
you work out the perfect counter rotation, it’s all rather easy. I
played it on the hardest setting, but I think I only died 3-4 times.

There’s no character customisation in the game in terms of gear,
but you can collect and craft Oculi upgrades for different bonus
effects. Given that it’s more of a budget title (11.99 on release),
I can’t be too fussy about this, and I don’t really think
different armour/weapon items would have quite fitted the game’s
aesthetic anyway.

The Oculi system isn’t just a tacked on thing though, as the gems
are almost essential against certain enemies and you’ll find
yourself swapping them out on a regular basis. Especially for bosses,
which is where the game really shines in terms of its battle system.
All of the bosses are great fun, not just to look at but to fight,
requiring some creative tactics and clever strategy, swapping out
characters turn by turn and rotating your attacks to limit the enemy
as much as possible.

Overall, Child of Light is a great little game. Whilst I’d have
liked the game to evolve its battle system as it progressed, I can’t
be too hard on it for that, because the system, as it is, has far
more depth and tactical nuance than you’d expect. (I just prefer it
when games give me something new to adapt to as I progress, and this
is something neither CoL or TSOT really offered). I beat it in about
15 hours on the Hard difficulty, but it’s definitely a title I’ll
play again, and it even comes with a New Game Plus mode.

And with a fantastic art style, fluid animations, a charming story,
characters and world, plus a fine soundtrack, Child of Light was a
very pleasant surprise. It doesn’t treat you like a moron or hold
your hand with quest markers and big arrows telling you exactly where
to go. It rewards exploration and experimentation. It’s a joy to
look at and fun to play, uncomplicated, simple on the surface but
with real depth beneath. Certainly worth checking out.

Saturday, 10 May 2014

So a friend recommended I try Hearthstone, a new free to play digital
card game based around the Warcraft universe. Although I wasn’t too
interested in the title, I figured I’d give it a go. The first
problem I hit was actually downloading the bloody thing. Or rather,
downloading Battle.net, the platform upon which the game is based and
required for play. Unfortunately, the day I tried to download the
client, the servers were down. Oh well.

Spin on another day and I get Battle.net downloaded and create a new
account. Ugh. Between Steam, Origin and Uplay, keeping track of all
these different platforms is getting a bit of a chore. But whatever,
I set up the account and loaded up the Battle.net program. This is
where things start to go wrong. Attempting to download Hearthstone I
encounter one error after another. A simple fix solves one problem
only to create another. Eventually, the only solution is to totally
wipe all trace of Battle.net and start over.

Except I didn’t. I bought Child of Light and played that instead
(review coming soon!). But a week or so on, I figured I’d give
Hearthstone one more shot. I installed Battle.net and clicked to
install Hearthstone. ERROR ERROR ERROR. Oh hell. I almost gave up
there and then, but I decided to give it ONE. LAST. CHANCE. And hey,
it actually worked this time!

So what were my initial impressions? Not exactly great, to be honest.
It wasn’t bad as such, I just couldn’t seem to get
very invested in it. The game takes you through a rather dry tutorial
to teach you the basics. Necessary, I suppose, but a little slow and
dull. However, given that the game was such a bloody nightmare to get
installed, I wanted to at least put a bit of time into it and, I’m
pleased to say, I really started enjoying it.

Once you get through the tutorial you get the chance to unlock the
playable Heroes. Each has their own unique card set and abilities in
combination with a general deck. Each represents a different class –
warrior / rogue / priest etc – with a play style to match. It was
whilst unlocking these Heroes that Hearthstone finally started to
‘click’ for me. I began to see and develop effective strategies
to counter and attack my opponents. After unlocking every Hero, I
gained access to a harder AI against which to practice.

But fighting the AI isn’t really where it’s at. There’s a
Casual/Ranked 1v1 system as well as an Arena mode, although I’m not
quite sure what that’s all about yet. After getting to grips with
the core mechanics, I set about compiling my own custom deck and
challenging that friend who persuaded me to try it. This is certainly
where I had the most fun, and the game has a fiendish ‘just one
more round’ type of addictive quality.

I can’t say how much longer Hearthstone will hold my interest, and
I really don’t care much about the competitive ranked aspects of
it. But as a free, somewhat strategic card game to play with friends
or when I’m a little bored, it’s a pretty neat little title. The
only major downside is the World of Warcraft icon on the Battle.net
launcher. Watching. Waiting. Biding its time.

Monday, 5 May 2014

Alan Wake is a third person action game about a writer on vacation,
which sounds like possibly the most boring thing ever. However,
things get a little more exciting when his wife goes missing and
shadowy men with axes begin popping out from behind every tree. It’s
a game with horror elements, although I’d hesitate to call it a
horror based game. There’s not much in the way of tension or fear,
or even basic jump scares, but there is a lot of shooting things with
guns.

The game is split into ‘episodes’ almost like a weekly TV show,
beginning with a ‘previously on’ recap. The story is decent
enough as are the various characters. I liked the fact that they
didn’t try to make Wake completely likeable. In fact, like most
writers, he’s a bit of a self-absorbed asshole. But that’s a part
of who he is, and those flaws are what make him an interesting
character, one you want to see overcome the challenges before him.

As
for the supporting cast, there are some nice characters, but few that
get particularly fleshed out. Wake’s agent, Barry, initially
strikes you as an annoying twit, but by the end you come to
appreciate what a good friend he’s been who’s willing to put it
all on the line for Wake.

In terms of graphics Alan Wake looks okay, with a mixture of some
nice forest and town environments. Plus nice lighting effects from
flares and torches. It’s nothing special, but it’s fine for what
it needs to do. As for gameplay...well, it’s also solid for what it
needs to do, but I can’t say much more than that.

You fight enemies by weakening them with light (torches, flares) and
then shooting them. That’s uh, about it, really. Although you do
have some walk and talk non-combat moments, and some sections where
you can drive a terribly handled vehicle. The combat, which makes up
the bulk of the game, is, you know, fine, but nothing
particularly exciting, and it does grow a little tiresome as you near
the end. There’s a basic dodge mechanic and also a sprint button,
but Alan gets tired whilst running even faster than I do.

A big part of the problem is that the game frequently puts you in
dark forest areas where you have to move from A to B, fighting small
groups of enemies who spawn at certain points. It’s a neat trick
the game pulls early on, quite atmospheric and almost tense, but it’s
also a trick Alan Wake pulls far too often, and these extended hikes
get rather repetitive, losing that initial impact.

I guess it’s
inevitable that when a game throws its bad guys at you so often, they
lose their menace as you reach a point when you’ve shot down
hundreds of the buggers. Thankfully, Alan Wake does mix things up,
with levels set during the day to explore and recharge, as well as
levels taking place in more urban environments.

This wasn’t my first play of Alan Wake, but my third, believe it or
not, so you know despite my issues with the game, it’s still one
I’ve enjoyed enough to play through more than once, although a part
of that is due to my OCD kicking in to gather all of the bloody
collectibles.

Overall, Alan Wake is a well crafted single player
experience, capturing the vibe of a Stephen King novel crossed with
an episode of The Twilight Zone. It has a few memorable, stand out
moments in addition to a decent plot and characters, both of which
rise Alan Wake a safe distance beyond its rather uninspired and
frequent shooty bits. Worth playing if you like TPS but are tired of
hugging chest high walls, or just want a SP focused game with a solid
story.

Saturday, 3 May 2014

Another year already? I guess it’s time to take a look back at what
I’ve accomplished. Let’s start with the writing stuff. At the end
of the last ‘blog year’ I put out my first ebook – The Great
Journey – a speculative sci-fi novella. It was followed by three
more novellas, each part of a single series – Zero Sample. TGJ was
something of a writing exercise, a chance to try a different tone and
style, and ZS was a similar piece of experimentation, a contemporary
sci-fi with a psychological twist. I’m planning on doing another
edit of these soon (nothing major, just a small polish here and
there) followed by a free promotion, hopefully to attract some more
reviews. Getting downloads isn’t too tricky, but reviews are
another matter.

Although I don’t think I’ve mentioned it on here before, I was
signed up to a literary agency in the US for a time, but that didn’t
quite work out the way I’d hoped. After little success trying to
approach publishers myself, I eventually signed with a new, local
agency – Broadland Literary. They’ve been fantastic. Two of my
novels, the YA TLDK and the MG SOV are now in the hands of some of
the best UK/US publishers. They’ve both attracted a lot of
interest, but it’s a long process and we’re only on the first
step of a very tall ladder.

Which takes me to my other major writing project this year – TSOTS,
the sequel to TLDK. Although we’ve not sold TLDK yet, the time felt
right for TSOTS. TLDK was written a couple of years ago now, so I’ve
been itching to get back to the world and characters. The great thing
about writing the sequel was being able to enrich the world in a way
that simply wasn’t possible in TLDK. With the core foundations of
the setting now established, I had the freedom to build upon and
expand the world. It’s been great, and I’m really pleased with
the completed draft.

So let’s move onto my other passion – video games! Last year I
did an image showcasing 12 games, one for every month. This year I
decided to do something a little different, so I took every game I’ve
scored an 8 or above and compiled them into the single image below.

These are all my top rated games since starting this blog. Although
all these games scored an 8 or above (with the exception of The
Stanley Parable, which I didn’t actually rate but felt was worthy
of inclusion) that doesn’t mean games scored under an 8 aren’t
worth checking out. Hell, some of them I’ve really enjoyed but only
given a 6/10 to.

So shall we break down those stats? There were 33 reviews this year,
compared to 37 last year. Of those 70 games, only 7 scored a 9/10 and
13 an 8/10. These (plus Stanley) are the games in the image above. I
plan to expand this image next year with additional top rated titles,
provided any pop up, of course. As I may have mentioned before,
there’s very little coming out this year that interests me. There’s
Dark Souls 2, out now, but I’ve not got it yet as I’ve been too
busy. There’s also Watch_Dogs, although I have my fears about that.
One game that did catch my attention though is Child of Light, which
I bought on a whim and have really been enjoying. We’ll see how it
goes.